Enrique Moliner

Electrochemical biosensors are becoming increasingly prevalent across medical, food, and bioprocessing industries for monitoring complex biological processes. However, their sensitivity to contamination and exposure to potentially hazardous biological species often necessitates single-use disposal, contributing to the release of high-value, high-demand, and environmentally damaging materials into the environment. This study investigates the feasibility of a closed-loop recycling process for single-use glucose biosensors, with a focus on the recovery and reuse of noble metals silver and gold. Guided by ecodesign principles and using low-impact materials, we developed a silver screen ink, gold syringe ink, and a poly(lactic acid) (PLA) substrate. Sensors were fabricated by additive manufacturing and screen printing—enabling the scalability afforded by screen printing to produce the high-coverage silver layer while also minimising gold ink waste using additive manufacturing. A low-energy recovery method that exploited selective solvent compatibility was developed to reclaim silver and gold. Second-generation devices were then fabricated, demonstrating performance comparable to commercial equivalents while achieving an 80% reduction in material usage, cost, and environmental impact across 16 categories using a life cycle assessment (LCA).

Electrochemical biosensors are becoming increasingly prevalent across medical, food, and bioprocessing industries for monitoring complex biological processes. However, their sensitivity to contamination and exposure to potentially hazardous biological species often necessitates single-use disposal, contributing to the release of high-value, high-demand, and environmentally damaging materials into the environment. This study investigates the feasibility of a closed-loop recycling process for single-use glu-cose biosensors, with a focus on the recovery and reuse of noble metals silver and gold. Guided by ecodesign principles and using low impact materials we developed a silver screen ink, gold syringe ink, and a poly(lactic acid) (PLA) substrate. Sensors were fab-ricated by additive manufacturing and screen printing - enabling the scalability afforded by screen printing to produce the high coverage silver layer, while also minimising gold ink waste using additive manufacturing. A low-energy recovery method that exploited selective solvent compatibility was developed to reclaim silver and gold. Sec-ond-generation devices were then fabricated, demonstrating performance comparable to commercial equivalents while achieving an 80% reduction in material usage, cost, and environmental impact across 15 categories using life cycle assessment (LCA).

Interest in green electronics has grown significantly as global electronic production, electronic waste (e-waste) generation, and resource depletion rise in parallel with international efforts to reduce carbon emissions. The persistent challenges of successful e-waste recycling and the environmental impact of resource consumption highlight the urgent need for transformative solutions in the electronics sector. Without major breakthroughs, conventional electronics as currently manufactured and consumed fall short of contributing to climate and other sustainability targets. Therefore, to support the transition to greener electronics, this work reviews existing research and legislation relevant to the field and considers the perspectives and ongoing efforts of the EU Green Electronics Working Group (comprised of 12 green electronics-focused Horizon Europe projects) to identify and define the most important aspects of green electronics. Given the absence of a widely accepted definition of what makes electronics truly “green,” the most critical aspects are clarified to support the development of a common, unified definition: Electronics that, when measured against their alternatives over their whole lifecycle and value chain, have a reduced environmental impact in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, toxicity, and resource depletion and avoid burden shifting from one impact to another or along the value chain, while fulfilling a given function. A set of recommendations and best practices, informed by the latest advancements and ongoing research developments in green electronics, is then provided to address the entire lifecycle of electronic devices. These strategies offer a framework to guide the development and adoption of greener electronics.

Summary: A comprehensive life cycle assessment of panels for aircraft interiors was conducted, including both a conventional glass fiber‐reinforced panel and different novel sustainable panels. The conventional panel is made of a glass fiber‐reinforced thermoset composite with halogenated flame retardant, whereas the sustainable panels are made of renewable or recyclable polymers, natural fiber reinforcements, and nonhalogenated flame retardants. Four different sustainable panels were investigated: a geopolymer‐based panel; a linseed‐oil–based biopolymer panel; and two thermoplastic panels, one with polypropylene (PP) and another with polylactic acid (PLA). All of the sustainable panels were developed to fulfil fire resistance requirements and to be lighter than the conventional panels in order to reduce fuel consumption and air pollutant emissions from the aircraft. The environmental impacts associated with energy consumption and air emissions were assessed, as well as other environmental impacts resulting from the extraction and processing of materials, transportation of materials and waste, panel manufacturing, use, maintenance, and end of life (EoL). All the sustainable panels showed better environmental performance than the conventional panel. The overall impacts of the sustainable panels were offset by the environmental benefits in the use stage attributed to weight reduction. One square meter of the novel panels could save to 6,000 kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalents. The break‐even point (in months) at which the use of sustainable panels would yield an environmental benefit relative to the impacts arising in production and EoL was as follows: 1.2 for the geopolymer panel; 1.7 for the biopolymer panel; 10.4 for the PLA panel; and 54.5 for the PP panel.

Objectives: Mitigating climate change requires management strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in any sector, including the health system. Carbon footprint calculations should play a key role in quantifying and communicating these emissions. Food is among the categories with low accuracy because the carbon footprint for food is still under development. We aimed to quantify the carbon footprint of different diets. Methods: Average carbon footprint for a normal diet was based on detailed composition data in Juan Ramón Jiménez Hospital (Huelva, Spain). In addition, the carbon footprints of 17 other therapeutic diets were estimated using a streamlined variation of each diet published by Benidorm Clinical Hospital (Spain). Results: The carbon footprint was calculated for 18 hospital diets for a variety of patients. The reference menu corresponds to the normal diet provided to patients who do not have special dietary requirements. This menu has a low carbon footprint of 5.083 CO₂ eq/day. Conclusions: Hospital diets contribute to the carbon footprint of a hospital. The type of diet has a significant impact on the greenhouse gas emissions. A Mediterranean diet is associated with lower environmental impact than diets with more meat, in particular red meat.

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a widely used tool for assessing the environmental impacts of a product or service throughout its life cycle. This includes transportation, which causes various environmental problems such as noise. Noise has special characteristics (dependence on local factors, lack of linear additivity of emissions, etc.) which complicate the assessment of its impact. The lack of data on noise has been an additional problem. However, the recent publication of the strategic noise maps offers the opportunity to overcome these limitations. This paper provides a method to assess the impact of noise from road transport and integrate it into the LCA. This method overcomes the methodological limitations of previous studies and uses data from the noise maps to perform the assessments. The health impacts due to noise are quantified in DALYs (disability-adjusted life years), thus allowing the comparison and aggregation of noise with other pollutants harmful to health. The paper includes a case study where the proposed method is used to calculate the noise impact caused by a heavy vehicle that travels one kilometre on three different roads. The noise impact is compared with the health impacts due to fuel consumption and air emissions from the heavy vehicle. Through the case study, the need for specific noise impact assessments for each particular case is justified, while the validity of the proposed method to perform such assessments in an effective way is demonstrated. The results also show that noise has significant relevance in comparison to other impact categories typically assessed in LCA, which justifies its inclusion as a usual impact category.El Análisis del Ciclo de Vida (ACV) es una herramienta ampliamente utilizada para evaluar los impactos ambientales de un producto o servicio durante todo su ciclo de vida. Esto incluye el transporte, que causa diversos problemas ambientales entre los que se encuentra el ruido. El ruido tiene ciertas particularidades (dependencia de factores locales, imposibilidad de agregar linealmente sus emisiones, etc.) que dificultan la evaluación de su impacto. La escasez de datos sobre ruido ha supuesto un inconveniente añadido. Sin embargo, la publicación reciente de los mapas estratégicos de ruido ofrece la oportunidad de superar estas limitaciones. Este artículo proporciona un método para evaluar el impacto del ruido del transporte rodado e integrarlo en el ACV. Este método resuelve las limitaciones metodológicas observadas en otros trabajos previos y permite realizar las evaluaciones a partir de datos de los mapas de ruido. Los impactos del ruido sobre la salud se cuantifican en DALYs (años de vida ajustados por discapacidad), posibilitando la comparación y agregación del ruido con otros contaminantes nocivos para la salud. El artículo incluye un caso de estudio donde el método propuesto se usa para calcular el impacto del ruido de un vehículo pesado que recorre un kilómetro por tres carreteras distintas. El impacto del ruido se compara con los impactos sobre la salud debidos al consumo de combustible y a las emisiones atmosféricas del vehículo pesado. A través del caso de estudio se justifica la necesidad de realizar evaluaciones específicas del impacto del ruido para cada caso particular y se demuestra la validez del método propuesto para realizar tales evaluaciones de manera eficaz. Los resultados también muestran que el ruido tiene una relevancia significativa en comparación con otras categorías de impacto evaluadas normalmente en el ACV, lo cual justifica su inclusión como categoría de impacto habitual